Keira WitherKay wrote:
Spruce or Cedar
The two most common woods used for acoustic guitar tops are spruce and cedar. There is no difference in quality between the two woods so the choice is one of preference. Spruce tends to sound brighter and clearer and has what could be classed as a germanic sound. Cedar is warmer and more direct and has a more spanish sound. Both types of wood will improve over time but the cedar will sound better at the beginning but have a less dramatic improvement than the spruce. I personally prefer the cedar sound but again this is purely a matter of taste and is often determined by which type of guitar one learns on and what type was played by the guitarist one listened to most. The choice of wood is an issue if you want a certain type of sound but is certainly far less important of an issue than whether the top is solid or not.
I have for some time been unsure about the tonal differences between spruce and cedar. Obviously the people writing about these things have to describe subtle nuances of sound - not easy. And the reader has to try and "decode" this information to try to understand the differences. Michael Murray's description above is one of the more helpful ones that I have read.
Also on his site is a link to a video in which a player performs the same piece on two guitars by the same maker - one with a spruce top and one with a cedar top. This gives a good demonstration of the different tonal attributes of the two woods.
The player is Scott Tennant. The piece is
Campanas del Alba by Eduardo Sainz De La Maza. The guitars are by Paul Jacobson. Spruce first, cedar second.
Also note Michael Murray's comments about spruce topped guitars. There is definitely an aging process with these instruments, with the top changing and, by most people's ears, improving with time and with playing. Usually the spruce tops will darken as well - unless they have been stained when the guitar was built in which case you will see rather less change in colour.
The playing issue is important too. I've heard this from several people now. In essence, if you buy two new spruce-topped guitars from the same maker and store one under the bed, the wood will obviously age but in 5 years time there will be a difference in tone between the one you played and the one you kept under your bed.
Some makers assert that cedar has less "headroom", that you can't play these guitars really hard (this may be more the case with steel than with nylon strings). This is not a universally held idea, and so you should let your ears be the judge. Nick Benjamin is an adherent of this school of thought. Lowden make a lot of cedar top guitars and they say nothing about it on their web site. Benjamin goes on to say that redwood (sequoia) is an interesting alternative because it sounds like cedar but has the headroom of spruce. He calls it "cedar on steroids". Note that genuine redwood is expensive.
